The hardest part of design ... is keeping features out. -- Donald Norman

Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming. -- Donald Knuth

The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made. -- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

Des mots simples, quand ils sont bien utilisés, font faire à des gens ordinaires des choses extraordinaires. -- Khaled TANGAO

The choice of the university is mostly important for the piece of paper you get at the end. The education you get depends on you. -- Andreas Zwinkau

Hence my urgent advice to all of you to reject the morals of the bestseller society and to find, to start with, your reward in your own fun. This is quite feasible, for the challenge of simplification is so fascinating that, if we do our job properly, we shall have the greatest fun in the world. -- E. W. Dijkstra, On the nature of computing science.

First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end. –Aristotle

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. –Babe Ruth

You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you had to overcome to reach your goals. ~Booker T. Washington

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan